Who are they?

1.  Introduction

We are going to explore the assumptions we all make when we first see someone. How can we find out what someone’s really like? This was especially important during the Holocaust. We are going to share definitions of bystanders, perpetrators, rescuers, survivors and victims in the context of the Holocaust and then look at some individuals from that time.

Definitions

Perpetrators- the people who carried out the Holocaust

Victims – those who suffered or died

Rescuers -those who saved, or tried to save, victims, from danger at a possible cost to themselves and others

Bystanders- people who saw injustice and did nothing to help or protest

Survivors - people who suffered and survived

1.  Main activity

A.   I am going to show you photos, just have a think which category each might be, from just looking without knowing any of the facts, then I’ll tell you about them and you’ll be able to decide who is a perpetrator, victim, rescuer, bystander, survivor. Some come into more than 1 category.

B.  Show each photo in order and, for each, tell them about the person and ask students which category they might be from and why.

•   Kurt Gerstein- joined SS, but was not a Nazi. He wanted to find out if the rumours of murder of disabled people were true, visited 2 death camps, and witnessed the murder of thousands of Jews every day in gas chambers. He told the Swedish and British governments, churches in Berlin and Dutch resistance but was not believed and no action was taken. He took his own life in despair. Photo

•   Leopold Socha - Polish criminal turned sewer worker. Discovered 21 Jewish people hiding, in fear of their lives, in the sewers. He knew helping them would be punishable by death, but there was a reward for betraying them. He kept them safe, fed and healthy, initially in return for money but later at his own expense. 10 survived with his help. Photo

•   Reinhard Heydrich - high ranking Nazi responsible for organising the murder of every Jewish person in Europe. He organised killing squads, deportations to ghettos and death camps. He was assassinated in Czechoslovakia in 1942 (aged 38)

Photo 1 Photo 2

•   Ben Helfgott - A Jew, born in Poland, who survived concentration camps as a child. He came to England in 1945 and became an Olympic weightlifter, representing Great Britain. Only he and one sister survived. Photo

•   Irma Gresse - defied her father to volunteer to become an SS guard in death camps, where she was known as ‘The Beast of Belsen’ because she was vicious, beat and shot people and enjoyed inflicting pain. Tried and found guilty, she was executed, aged 22, in 1945 at the end of the war. Photo 1 Photo 2

•   Hannah Senesh -a Jewish poet who volunteered to parachute into Nazi occupied Hungary, working for the British army, to assist in the rescue of Hungarian Jews. She was betrayed, arrested and killed in Budapest, aged 23, in 1944.  Photo

•   Bystanders- we don’t know the names of these people. What do you see? Photo

Harry and Ahmed Film

I’m now going to show you a film, made by UNICEF (only 2 minutes long) showing us 2 people and their experiences. They look and seem at first to be so different, what do you think they have in common? Film

Brian Bilston Poem - Refugees

By permission of the author.

I’m going to read you a poem twice, the first time going downwards and then in reverse order. You may find it shocking when you first hear it read in the normal way, but very different when you hear it the second time, read backwards. What do you think?

They have no need of our help

So do not tell me

These haggard faces could belong to you or me

Should life have dealt a different hand

We need to see them for who they really are

Chancers and scroungers

Layabouts and loungers

With bombs up their sleeves

Cut-throats and thieves

They are not

Welcome here

We should make them

Go back to where they came from

They cannot

Share our food

Share our homes

Share our countries

Instead let us

Build a wall to keep them out

It is not okay to say

These are people just like us

A place should only belong to those who are born there

Do not be so stupid to think that

The world can be looked at another way

(Reader then says “But the world can be looked at another way, and this is what happens when we read it from bottom to top”    -and reads it again from bottom to top)

The world can be looked at another way

Do not be so stupid to think that

A place should only belong to those who are born there

These are people just like us

It is not okay to say

Build a wall to keep them out

Instead let us

Share our countries

Share our homes

Share our food

They cannot                                                                                                                                 

Go back to where they came from

We should make them

Welcome here

They are not

Cut-throats and thieves

With bombs up their sleeves

Layabouts and loungers

Chancers and scroungers

We need to see them for who they really are

Should life have dealt a different hand

These haggard faces could belong to you or me

So do not tell me

They have no need of our help

If there is more time

Supplementary questions for discussion

1.What risks might a person take to help someone in danger?

2. What might motivate a person to act in a certain way (possible answers – social media, peer pressure, home life, religion and beliefs, government intervention

3. What choices did people have during the Holocaust?

4. Who has inspired you and why?